FGA Sports Fellowship

Do you ever get a little frustrated with people who don’t want to keep score? I have friends who want to go play golf, but not keep score. I don’t want to play with those guys. I tell them, “Just go to the driving range and don’t clutter up the golf course.” What’s the point in playing the game if you don’t compete?

So what’s the big deal with competition? Is it, as some think, for one to show his superiority over another? For some this is probably true. For most of us however, the point is to test ourselves. That’s exactly the point in golf, as each one is competing primarily against the course. It is a test of one’s skills, not just a competition with one’s opponent.

How does competition test us? Let’s make a brief list:

• Competition tests us physically – technique, talent and fitness.
• Competition tests us mentally – focus, knowledge and insight.
• Competition tests us spiritually – self-control, faith and love.

Why compete? To compete well is to test oneself against an ascending scale of standards of achievement. This list of standards is borrowed from Dr. Jim Rimmer of Erie, Pennsylvania.

• Competing against the elements of the sport. (Fundamentals)
• Competing against one’s opponent. (To beat that person or team)
• Competing against an objective standard. (Statistics)
• Competing against one’s personal best. (Personal records)
• Competing to a mental image. (Like a video of the sport’s best)
• Competing “in the zone.” (Being in the flow)

Competition tests us in ways that move us beyond mediocrity and it challenges us to become all we are capable of being. Don’t let the test intimidate you, rather step up, play your heart out and feel the satisfaction of having done your level best in pursuit of an honorable victory. Win or lose, you have made progress in the life-long process of developing as a complete person.

For more of Roger’s material
1 Email him and ask him to send you his weekly email – it is almost as good as mine!! lipe@earthlink.net
2 Read his book Transforming Lives in Sport – A Guide for Sport Chaplains and Sport Mentors. (Available through www.crosstrainingpublishing.com.)
3 See his blog http://sportchaplainsportmentor.blogspot.com/
4 See www.wired4sport.com.

Stuart Weir
www.veritesport.org

Compete as a Christian or don’t compete at all

Scott Reavily in his MPhil thesis on competition, came to the conclusion that for the Christian: “the case against competition is more compelling than the case for it”. If he is right, then Christians had better get out of sport.

If he is right Christians need not only to stop playing sport but also to stop doing business or entering politics as they will be obliged to allow their opponents to win every time! It is our view that Christians can and must stay in sport and face the tensions head on.

I believe, however, that the challenge for the Christian competitor is to bring a higher quality of competition into sport. That is the crux of the issue we are addressing. Christians are to take God’s world of sport and regain it for his glory. The world of sport, in Calvin’s phrase should become a “theatre of God’s glory”. Christians are to be fully engaged in competitive sport, using their God-given talents to the full, giving 100% commitment to the contest. At the same time that commitment is to be given in a spirit of loving one’s neighbour as oneself.

There have been many examples of treating one’s opponent with love in the history of sport. For example, Eugenio Monte removing the bolt from his own bob and giving it to the UK team whose bolt had broken in the 1964 Winter Olympics – ultimately sacrificing his own gold medal chance; or tennis player Nduka Odizor lending an opponent a pair of his grass court shoes before playing him in a tournament.

I suggest that the Christian is to compete with three attitudes:

1. that competitive sport, like everything else for the Christian should be an act of worship;
2. that we are to love our neighbour (ie our team mate, opponent and the officials) as ourselves; and
3. that as Christ’s representatives we must play Christianly.

What better arena is there in which to exhibit the love of Christ than sport, as players love team mates as themselves, as they care for each other and make sacrifices for each other?

Accepting defeat as not the end of the world, and being content to have given 100% for God, may be a radical concept. It is also how Christians need to express their Christian faith amidst the challenges of professional sport.

Stuart Weir